IPSWICH: Super Blues fans will be doing their bit to help save a vital town charity during a special Boxing Day match, it was revealed today.

Ipswich Town has agreed to use the popular post-Christmas fixture to attract attention for beleaguered drug rehabilitation centre the Iceni Project, which had its funding drastically slashed earlier this month.

The club will run a collection at the gates in aid of the Foundation Street charity and auction off a corporate box with full hospitality for a few lucky fans to watch the match against Watford in style.

Players will also take part by doing their warm-up wearing Iceni-branded T-shirts, which will then be signed and auctioned off.

Club chief executive Simon Clegg said: “I went to visit the Iceni Project because I had heard they were in financial difficulties, to see what we could do as the local football club.

“I was very taken by the people that I met and I just felt that we are very lucky to have a project like that in Ipswich – and mainly serving the people of Ipswich.

“With the crisis in funding they have got, I felt we should try and provide some leadership and support to the campaign that The Evening Star is running.

“We have got a great local facility and we owe it to the people in our community who do have their lives ruined by drugs to support this facility so these people can get themselves off drugs and back into mainstream life.”

Iceni faces an uncertain future after funding from the Suffolk Drug and Alcohol Action Team – thought to be in the region of �260,000 – was slashed earlier this month.

Iceni co-founder Brian Tobin said: “It’s a huge boost to our survival. With backing from The Evening Star, the churches and now the town football club, we’ve got a royal flush of the whole community.Ipswich Town are going out on a limb for us and it’s tremendous that they have chosen us as an organisation to support.”

n What do you think of the decision to cut funding for Iceni? Write to Your Letters, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstar letters@eveningstar. co.uk.